For the past few years, Intel has been the dominant force in powering most convertible notebooks. With AMD’s introduction of their Ryzen processors, the Red Team has been slowly gaining ground in both desktops and in notebook processors.
Today, we’ll be taking a look at the Lenovo Yoga 530. With an AMD Ryzen processor and RX Vega graphics inside, will Lenovo and AMD’s convertible notebook have a place in both your professional and private life?
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 2700U, Ryzen 5 2500U, Ryzen 3 2300U, Ryzen 3 2200U |
| OS | Windows 10 Home |
| GPU | Radeon RX Vega 10, RX Vega 8, RX Vega 6, RX Vega 3 |
| RAM | 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, DDR4 |
| Display | 14.0-inch, 1920 x 1080 or 1366 x 768, IPS, Touch Screen |
| Storage | 128GB, 256GB, 512GB PCIe SSD |
| I/O Ports | 2x USB 3.1 Gen1, 1x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C, 4-in-1 Card Reader, HDMI, 3.5 mm Audio Jack |
| Connection | 1×1 WiFi 802.11ac |
| Weight | Starts at 1.6kg |
| Dimensions | 328 x 229 x 1.76mm |
| Battery | 45Wh, Up to 8 Hours, Rapid Charge |
| Colors | Onyx Black |
| Others | Fingerprint Reader, Lenovo Active Pen, Backlit Keyboard |
As with most Lenovo devices that carry the Yoga moniker, the Lenovo Yoga 530 comes in a sleek and modern shell. Made out of a thin sheet of aluminum, the smooth ebony top chassis of the notebook is only broken by the Yoga emblem.
The device’s screen is a 14.0-inch IPS screen. Depending on the configuration, you may opt for a 1920 x 1080 or a 1366 x 768 resolution display. Either way, you’ll still be getting touch functionalities on the screen.
Since the Lenovo Yoga 530’s display is IPS in nature, you’ll have no problems in color reproduction and viewing angles. The display is also fairly above average in terms of brightness. This brightness will also come in handy in outdoor scenarios since the screen does not have any anti-glare coating.
As for the keyboard, the Lenovo Yoga 530 has a typical 60% Chiclet-style keyboard. Everything is customary with the keyboard having basic function keys bound to the Function Row.
The arrow keys double as navigation keys with the help of the Function key located beside the Windows key at the left-hand side. The keyboard is also backlit for all of you who like typing in the dark. This can be turned on or off by pressing the Function key and the space bar.
The notebook’s touchpad is fairly decent and is just wider than the space bar. Tracking is good while the surface is smooth without any kind of noticeable bumps.
The Lenovo Yoga 530 comes with a built-in fingerprint reader located just below the arrow keys. This will enable Windows Hello for a more secure login for the notebook.
The Lenovo Yoga 530 comes with a customary amount of ports for its form factor. The right-hand side of the device is occupied by the DC input, a single USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A port, a USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and surprisingly, a full-sized HDMI port.
The left-hand side of the notebook is a little bit less populated. Only being inhabited by a Kensington lock, another USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A port, and a 4-in-1 card reader.
As with most Yoga devices, the Yoga 530 can be converted into a tablet by fully turning the hinge on the display. Once done, the display of the notebook will now lay on top of the bottom chassis.
The device will automatically detect that it’s being turned into a tablet. It will then instinctively turn off the keyboard and the touch pad to avoid any accidental key presses.
To aid with input, Lenovo has thrown in the Lenovo Active Pen for free with the notebook. Powered by a single AAAA battery, the Lenovo Active Pen will allow you to improve your performance in in daily tasks like editing photos.
The Lenovo Yoga 530 can also be used in tent mode. This will allow you to enjoy content such as movies and TV series without much hassle of holding a tablet of a notebook. Just put the device in a flat surface and continue to enjoy your content as much as possible.
The Lenovo Yoga 530 comes in different models. At the top-end of the range, the notebook can have an AMD Ryzen 7 2700U, 16GB of RAM, an RX Vega 10 GPU, and a 512GB PCIe SSD.
Our SKU, the Lenovo Yoga 530-14ARR, comes with a Ryzen 5 2500U, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, an RX Vega 8 GPU, and 256GB of PCie SSD storage. This makes our notebook variant a mid-range contender in the Lenovo Yoga 530 range.
“CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system such as processor name and number, codename, process package, cache levels, mainboard and chipset, as well as memory type, size, timings, and module specifications. It also offers real time measurement of each core’s internal frequency and memory frequency.”
“Cinebench R15 CPU test scenario uses all of your system’s processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene. This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores. In fact, CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 256 processor threads.This test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.”
“7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio for ZIP and GZIP formats, which is between 2 to 10% better than its peers, depending on the exact data tested. And 7-Zip boosts its very own 7z archive format that also offers a significantly higher compression ratio than its peers—up to 40% higher.”
“wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we’re sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum.”
“Designed to showcase the DirectX 11 API, the Futuremark 3DMark Firestrike became a standard in benchmarking as it not only tests the capabilities of the GPU, but also the capabilities of the whole system for a complete stress test.”
As a mid-range device, the AMD Ryzen 5 2500U does primarily reside in the middle of the pack as expected. It even managed to outperform some of the Intel-powered notebooks in our benchmarks.
The RX Vega 8 GPU on the device, however, does have a bit of a problem when it comes to gaming. This should be expected since the RX Vega 8 has not been designed to run intensive games.
If you’re going to play games with the Lenovo Yoga 530, we suggest sticking to lower resolutions and detail settings to get a playable frame rate.
Powering Lenovo Yoga 530 is a 45Whr battery that promises up to 8 hours of usage. Based on our experience, running the notebook with medium brightness and performance will get you around 5 hours of usage.
Turning down the brightness to its absolute minimum and turning on battery saver will allow you to use the notebook for around 7 hours. Even if you find yourself in a spot of bother with the battery, Lenovo’s Rapid Charge will allow the notebook to get up to 2 hours of usage in just 15 minutes of charge.
Speaking of charging, getting the battery up to 100% from 0% with the stock charger will take up to 2 hours of your time.
With prices starting at PhP 34,995, the Lenovo Yoga 530 does not really distinguish itself from its peers. There are other convertibles in the market that largely do the same things that the notebook does.
What it does, however, is offer a solid enough performance to compel potential customers to consider it in their shortlist of devices to get. With its Ryzen 5 2500U processor and RX Vega 8 GPU, the Lenovo Yoga 530 is able to keep up with the competition without much problems.
When it comes to relatively casual workloads such as watching videos and creating light content, the device will perform excellently. In heavier workloads such as editing high resolution videos and, by extension, gaming, then the Lenovo Yoga 530 might raise some eyebrows.
Despite this, we believe the device is still worthy of praise. This is why we’re giving the Lenovo Yoga 530 our Satisfying Convertible Notebook award for its laudable performance and flexibility it offers its users.
